People apparently don’t watch enough TV. Haven’t they ever heard that if you try to travel inside a plane’s landing gear bay you will die? As a student pointed out to me today (thanks, D.C.!, and good luck tomorrow!), the first cause of death may be hyperthermia (excess of heat in the body) when the landing gear is retracted after the takeoff roll, because that’s when the tyres are at their hottest, reaching hundreds of degrees Celsius. The second possible cause of death is hypoxia (lack of oxygen in the body); when the aircraft reaches approximately 12,000 feet, there’s no oxygen to maintain you alive. The third possible cause of death is freezing; at cruise level temperatures may reach well below -50ºC.

So why did this man try it? We’ll never know… The police believe the case might have been an accident – if the man was trying to travel as a stowaway – or a crime – if the man’s body was put into the landing gear compartment post-mortem.

By the way, how many terms do you know to refer to the place where the man was found? You’ve read some in the text above and you will find some more in the articles… Remember to widen your vocabulary range! Know more than one word for the same thing!